CARMEN STAAF, a 28-year-old New England Conservatory-trained jazz pianist, does what she has to do to make ends meet. Last year, she played accordion in a musical about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, starring puppets. More recently, she played ragtime piano with a xylophone band — in a dog costume.

But those gigs were nothing compared with talking her way into a $920-a-month studio apartment big enough for a bed and a baby grand. “I kept pestering the landlords,” said Ms. Staaf, a finalist in a jazz competition this month at the Kennedy Center in Washington. “I sent them a list of friends who lived in the building. I sent them my CD. It was like I was auditioning.”

01 November 2008

This is all over the place but too good not to reproduce here -- the "Justiciers masqués," hosts on Montreal radio station CKOI (pronounced "C'est quoi?"), prank call Sarah Palin, hard. It is truly a thing of beauty.

I love how they slip in so much francophone fanservice. The call contains references to Johnny Hallyday (the "French Elvis"), Stef Carse (infamous for recording the French-language version of "Achy Breaky Heart"), Richard Z. Sirois (legendary Quebecois comedian and radio host), and the Vanessa Paradis hit "Joe le Taxi." But one thing I thought for sure was part of the joke turned out not to be -- "Franck Louvrier" (i.e., "Frank the Worker") really is the name of President Sarkozy's communications director.

23 September 2008

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We can not directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may speedily transfer your commision for this transaction. After I receive that information I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

17 August 2008

You know how John McCain has been running all of those ads complaining that Barack Obama is "popular" and "inspiring" and "adored by millions of people around the world"? Well, it turns out that one of the benefits of having people actually like you is that it's a lot easier to get artists to agree to allow their songs to be used by your campaign. While Obama has apparently commissioned new campaign theme songs from Joss Stone, Alicia Keys, and Jay-Z, McCain, on the other hand, is having trouble securing the rights to use any music at all:

Regular readers will recognize that this isn't the first time McCain has received the cold shoulder from the music industry. Earlier this year, ABBA nixed McCain's attempt to use "Take a Chance on Me" (a personal favorite) at his rallies. "We played it a couple times and it's my understanding they went berserk," the candidate confessed. John Hall, formerly of the 1970s band Orleans and now a Democrat ic congressman from New York, wouldn't let McCain use “Still the One." When hardline Dem John Mellencamp learned that McCain was blasting "Pink Houses" before events, he requested that the Republican cease and desist. Shortly thereafter, McCain settled on "Johnny B. Goode" as his signature song. "It might be because it is the only one [the artist] hasn't complained about us using," he said at the time. But Chuck Berry quickly came out for Obama. While Will.i.am, Arcade Fire, the Decemberists, the Grateful Dead, Macy Gray and Wilco have personally serenaded Obama fans at campaign events, McCain's musical support has been limited to octogenarian composer Burt Bacharach and one half of the novelty country duo Big & Rich. Even the reliably Republican Ted Nugent is no fan. "McCain seem[s] to be catering to a growing segment of soulless Americans who could care less what they can do for their country, but whine louder and louder about what their country must do for them," says the Motor City Madman (who has the same criticism for Obama). "That is both un-American and pathetic."

Attention McCain staffers: do not despair. I have your new campaign theme song right here. I'd be perfectly willing to license it to the campaign -- for a suitable fee, of course. I recommend that you play this stirring number any time the candidate takes the stage, enters a room, or appears on television. I think you will find it vividly encapsulates everything John McCain stands for.

22 May 2008

I've been a huge fan of Rachel Maddow since the star-crossed launch of Air America Radio back in early 2004. She is now the last host standing from Air America's initial slate, and also the only host to emerge from the network who has successfully cracked the mainstream media bubble -- she is a regular commentator on MSNBC, and last Friday was invited back for her second stint guest-hosting Keith Olberman's Countdown.

Her radio program -- the best news show on the radio -- has been linked to in the "Redeye Newsfix" portion of the sidebar since back when her show was broadcasting at 5 AM Eastern. It now airs 7-9 PM most places -- but the best way to get it is to subscribe to the free podcast, courtesy San Fransisco's Green 960AM. (What you want is Hours Two and Three, which are 100% Rachel -- Hour One is a simulcast of MSNBC's Race to the White House.)

In addition to being an incredibly astute political commentator (Rhodes scholar, D.phil in political science) and entertaining radio host, Rachel is also a serious classic cocktail aficionado, one who is, like all right-thinking drinkers, especially partial to the whiskey drinks. So yeah, basically I am completely smitten with her, which is inconvenient as we are both taken, and also she is a lesbian.

Anyway, last night on her show, Rachel broke with format to deliver a long, incisive, and chilling analysis of where the Democratic race is headed if we don't have a candidate before the Rules and Bylaws Committee meets on May 31. If that happens, then the process ball will start rolling on the question of what to do with the results of the disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida. And once that ball starts rolling, it essentially cannot be stopped until the Democratic National Convention in late August.

I think Rachel is essentially correct -- Hillary Clinton has shown no intention whatsoever of dropping out of the race, and shows every sign of using the uncertainty her campaign has created around the fate of the Michigan and Florida delegations as justification to take this fight all the way to the convention in Denver. That means that unless something incredibly dramatic happens with the superdelegates over the next nine days, we are in for three and a half more months of infighting, with no official Democratic candidate, culminating in what is sure to be a bloodbath on the convention floor.

I do not think this scenario bodes well for the eventual nominee's chances versus John McCain in November.

The Clinton strategy, as best as I can tell, is to stay in the race.
You can't win if you don't play -- conceding the nomination is sure
defeat, not conceding means there's still a chance.

The way for her to avoid conceding is for her to avoid conceding that the race is resolved.

As long as the Florida and Michigan dispute is alive, and it is being
used as the basis of Clinton's claim that the nomination is unresolved,
we should expect that Senator Clinton will stay in the race.

We should also expect that if the Democratic Party's committee
system takes up the Florida and Michigan dispute through its rules as
they stand now, Clinton's campaign will be able to keep the Michigan
and Florida dispute alive until the convention. If there's a secret
Democratic-insider plan to keep that from happening, it's time for that
plan to become un-secret.

The pundit corps has been counting Clinton out and saying the race is over -- but saying it doesn't make it so.

If Clinton fights to stay in until the convention -- which seems
utterly plausible to me -- then I believe the Democratic Party's
nominee (Obama or Clinton) will lose the general election to John
McCain. This last point is of course infinitely debatable -- but my
take is that in November, the party that's had a nominee since
February/March, beats the party that only got a nominee the last week
in August.

There appears to be one, slim hope remaining to avoid this nightmare scenario:

[I]f the Democrats are to avoid a divided convention, the Florida
and Michigan dispute will have to be taken off the table -- settled in
a way that avoids the risk of a rules dispute that stretches the
nominating contest out through the convention. I can think of only one
way to do that, but there may be others.

Here's my way: based on my read of NBC's delegate math, I think if
the Clinton campaign won 100% of what they wanted on the Florida and
Michigan dispute, Obama could still clinch the nomination -- even
according to the most pro-Clinton math -- if 90 of the remaining
210-or-so undeclared superdelegates declared for Obama.

If they so declared before May 31st, the Rules and Bylaws committee
would have no reason to take up the Florida and Michigan dispute
because it would be a moot point -- Obama's camp could concede every
Clinton demand on the subject and still win the nomination.

Rachel concludes by noting that the last three disputed conventions -- in 1968, 1972, and 1980 -- were complete electoral catastrophes for the Democrats. I really don't think we can afford to go 0 for 4.

UPDATE: Well, okay, sure, that is one way we could avoid a disputed convention. I'm not sure it would exactly be my first choice...

Though citizens of those nations do not need visas to enter the United States for as long as 90 days, their admission is up to the discretion of border agents. There are more than 60 grounds for finding someone inadmissible, including a hunch that the person plans to work or immigrate, or evidence of an overstay, however brief, on an earlier visit.

While those turned away are generally sent home on the next flight, “there are occasional circumstances which require further detention to review their cases,” Ms. De Cima said. And because such “arriving aliens” are not considered to be in the United States at all, even if they are in custody, they have none of the legal rights that even illegal immigrants can claim.

[…]

Ms. Cooper said that at the airport, when she begged to know what was happening to Mr. Salerno, an agent told her, “You know, he should try spending a little more time in his own country.”

Another agent eventually told her to go home because Mr. Salerno was being detained as an asylum-seeker.

[…]

Ten days after he landed in Washington, Mr. Salerno was still incarcerated, despite efforts by Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and two former immigration prosecutors hired by the Coopers.

[…]

Luis Paoli, a lawyer hired by the Coopers, said there was no limit on detention while waiting for an asylum interview. But even after officials agreed the asylum issue had been a mistake, Mr. Salerno was not released.

19 April 2008

A section of wall from CBGB covered in band fliers has been preserved under glass, and in keeping with Mr. Varvatos’s image as a rock ’n’ roll designer — his models include Iggy Pop and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden — the store is decorated with rock memorabilia and also sells vintage vinyl records and audio equipment.

“The whole purpose of coming here was to retain part of the history,” Mr. Varvatos said in an interview, as bands sound-checked before the show, “so that anybody can walk in off the street and experience part of what was here.”

[...]

“We’re not trading on CB’s at all,” said Mr. Varvatos, whose stubbly looks and Detroit accent give him the aura of an ordinary rock fan made good. (He later corrected himself, saying: “Are we using the walls to help sell the clothes? Yes.”)

Also, could Arturo Vega (former lighting tech/t-shirt designer/hanger-on for the Ramones... oh, excuse me, "creative director") be any more of a dick? You be the judge:

On the sidewalk outside a handful of protesters complained about the effects of gentrification on the city’s music scene. Rebecca Moore, a musician who is one of the founders of Take It to the Bridge, an activist group that organized the demonstration, sparred loudly with Mr. Vega. Saying that Lower Manhattan is becoming “a playground for rich people,” she shouted: “Forty-thousand-dollar-a-month rents, $1,600 jackets and $800 pants are closing music spaces in New York.”

Smiling, Mr. Vega responded: “When you are good at what you do, money comes, people. Work hard and you’ll be able to afford.”

A chorus of boos drowned him out.

Go show Take It To The Bridge some love -- what they are doing is vital if Manhattan is going to have any music scene to speak of five years from now. And you think this pattern won't repeat itself in Brooklyn? It's already well underway.

31 March 2008

Once upon a time, Manhattan was an island of adult thrills and vices. In the national imagination, it was a place of artists, musicians, socialites, Wall Street bankers -- or of hustlers, runaways, addicts, murderers. But it was not on the radar of the typical white, middle-class couple as a place to raise children.

Now demographers say Manhattan is increasingly a borough of babies, and more and more of them are white and well-off.

The number of children younger than 5 in Manhattan has increased about 30 percent since 2000, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. The increase is driven by white toddlers, whose numbers have gone up by 60 percent, according to the 2000 census and the 2006 American Community Survey, he said. For the first time since the 1960s, young white children outnumber their black or Hispanic counterparts in Manhattan, demographers say.

"It's surprising," Frey said. "It's a selective part of the white population, a lifestyle of people who want to have children and can afford to live in the city."

Indeed, according to Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, the median household income for this group of children was $280,000 in 2005.

[…]

Alphabet City in the East Village, which a decade ago was famous for its post-punk scene and its heroin markets, now is rife with hipster preschools for tattooed and pierced rock-and-roll parents, and baby boutiques that sell $112 onesies made by Italian designers.

[…]

"I feel like a wartime profiteer," said Amanda Uhry, the founder of Manhattan Private School Advisors, which charges a $15,000 fee to help parents through admissions -- and whose business has tripled since 2002.

The close is almost too good to be true:

But young Theo Carlston is just happy to play at Citibabes, a SoHo club where parents can use the gym or have a manicure while their children take dance classes or French lessons.

"I'm hiding in my fort!" Theo shouted as his mother discussed the city her family is helping to create.

Two good writeups of that hit -- one from Tony Tommasini in the NYT, and one from Peter Matthews at Feast of Music, who might just have been the only person in the audience at Avery Fisher Hall who had also attended a Todd P.-curated show the night before. Both reviews are notable for being among the few accounts of a Dudamel appearance that do not include a paragraph or two of hand-wringing about how the young conductor is morally compromised for not publicly denouncing Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

This is, as you may know, a bit of a hot topic in the classical sphere. In in his New Yorker column, Alex Ross writes "I wondered about the wisdom of putting on such a patriotic display at a time when other Venezuelan students have been protesting Hugo Chávez’s increasingly anti-democratic regime," and in a follow-up post on his blog, entitled "The Venezuela Problem," he adds: "What disturbs me [...] is that when politicians throw money at music, some in the classical business tend not to scrutinize the politics too closely."

Steve Smith, in reference to Chávez not being mentioned in a pre-concert discussion at Carnegie, writes:

[José Antonio] Abreu [founder of El Sistema], whose achievements in Venezuela unquestionably deserve respect, went on to say that similar programs were being launched in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, and told the audience that he had urged the Carnegie Hall board to start presenting its artists in Venezuela.

Not that I wanted [Ara] Guzelimian [host of the chat] to get all Lee Bollinger here, but I did hope that some political context might be provided for the remarkable progress -- on both artistic and humanitarian levels -- that "El Sistema" has caused in Venezuela.

Instead, this was something like Dumbledore talking about opening Hogwarts franchises all over the world -- while He Who Must Not Be Named simply wasn't.

Neither Alex nor Steve take Dudamel himself to task for being insufficiently anti-Chávez, but Bob Shingleton (aka Pliable) of On An Overgrown Path has been far more vocal and persistent in his criticism. In this post, he writes: "The two photos show Venezuelan riot police facing university students during protests against Chavez’s decision to shut down opposition-aligned television station RCTV in May 2007. Perhaps DG will use them on the next Dudamel CD sleeve?"

Let me be clear -- I am not a fan of Chávez. Although democratically elected, his administration has taken a decidedly authoritarian turn, and people are right to be troubled. If Dudamel were to use his newfound international celebrity to take a strong public stance against Chávez's antidemocratic policies, I would certainly welcome it.

But I am also troubled by what I see as a certain double standard. It seems to me that many in the classical blogosphere are following the lead of conservative pundits in vastly inflating both Chávez's importance in the world and the extent of his antidemocratic activities. This led me to make some intemperatecomments on certain threads, but I am frustrated by what looks an awful lot like hypocrisy.

I am not arguing that Hugo Chávez is a good guy. He is not. But compared to, say, Vladimir Putin, he's chump change:

Voting starts in Russian election

Polling stations have opened in the Russian capital, Moscow, as the country continues to vote in general elections over 22 hours across 11 time zones.

Eleven parties are competing for places in the lower house, the Duma - though it is not clear how many will secure the 7% needed to qualify for seats.

President Vladimir Putin's party is predicted to win, boosting his bid to retain power after leaving the Kremlin.

Opposition parties have accused the government of stifling their campaigns and of intimidation.

Independent monitors say their attempts to observe the poll have been hampered.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has abandoned its plans to send a big team of election observers to Russia after accusing the Russian government of imposing unacceptable restrictions and of deliberately delaying the issuing of visas. Russia has denied the claims.

Only a much smaller group of MPs from the OSCE's parliamentary assembly will be in attendance.

The largest party in the Duma going into the elections is United Russia, and it will be hoping to maintain its dominance against the challenge from the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Yabloko party and others.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is at the top of the United Russia party list - opening the possibility that he could keep a grip on power from parliament even after stepping down as president next year.

During the run-up to the election, demonstrations were forbidden, and opposition coalition leader (and former World Chess Champion) Garry Kasparov was jailed for five days for his role in an anti-Putin rally. He has called the election a "farce."

But the biggest boost, says Gergiev, "comes from the sense of stability which Putin immediately brought to the country. We worked together in the most difficult years. Today the country is in better shape […]."

In this same article, we learn that Putin was personally responsible for directing $184 million worth of state funds towards the renovation of the orchestra's home, the Kirov-Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

I do not like to play the "if you are outraged about this, why aren't you outraged about that" game. But in this case, the parallel is too clear and the double standard too glaring to let pass without comment.

Also -- I mentioned this in the comments, but just so nobody gets the wrong idea: It was certainly not my intention to single out Alex Ross or Steve Smith for opprobrium! The passages I quoted from Alex and Steve are, taken by themselves, entirely reasonable. But in order to point out the institutional double standard, which is hardly the fault of any one individual, I needed to pull some representative quotes from someone. I could have citied any number of critics, but I chose Alex and Steve precisely because (I hope!) they both understand that I have tremendous respect for their work and that no personal slight is intended.

Dudamel is no Furtwängler or Shostakovich because Chávez is no Hitler or Stalin. But the basic choice is the same: Either: 1. confront the regime and risk retaliation which may force you into exile or worse, which will cause you to lose all influence at home and risk the undoing of all your previous efforts; or 2. find a way to deal with the system so that you can build something that will outlast the regime.

Also, I know this will come as a big surprise, but Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher is a hack:

"Yes, we should be ashamed" of what happened in the case, Rohrabacher said. "That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives."

And your evidence that sending suspects to be "interrogated" in countries who are even more permissive of torture than the US has saved "millions of American lives" is...

Oh, of course -- classified on national security grounds. But trust us -- torture saves millions of lives. Really it does. Don't you watch 24?

19 August 2007

I haven't blogged on the conviction Thursday in Jose Padilla show-trial, because the whole thing is just too depressing. Almost 60 years after Project MKULTRA was launched, the US government is still inflicting Manchurian Candidate-style psychological violence on US citizens. The "enhanced interrogation techniques" they used are not designed to extract useful information from you. Instead, they are absolutely guaranteed to destroy your mind, just as surely as if they had lobotomized you.

02 August 2007

If it wasn't an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to
be just a lousy accident - a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a
support - then we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of
those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This
death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference.

In a word, it was avoidable.

That
means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger
will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.

For
half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that
of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a
lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty
vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring
and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it
would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are
years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of
infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one
of the basic duties of government.

I hope you sleep well, Grover, because the families of those still missing won't.

While I still think it's unlikely that anyone in authority "ordered a hit on Pat Tillman", this whole situation is just incredibly disturbing. Good on his family for keeping the pressure for these past these years, demanding real answers under what I can only imagine are extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

The thing I love about it is, of course, that "serious" has also long
been the word that High Modernist composers use to distinguish
themselves from composers who try to appeal to the audience, who think
about accessibility, who are influenced by pop music, who don't build
up dramatic climaxes, who appreciate Erik Satie and Virgil Thomson, who
don't try to impress each other with the sophistication of their
techniques. "Serious" is a condescending but tolerant-seeming word that
connotes, well, yes, these postminimalists are composers too, and
amateurs may find in them a certain entertainment value, but we must
not forget, of course, who the really serious composers are.

His achievement required political clout, and that, too, is on display. Soon after he formed Citigroup, Congress repealed a Depression-era law that prohibited goliaths like the one Mr. Weill had just put together anyway, combining commercial and investment banking, insurance and stock brokerage operations. A trophy from the victory — a pen that President Bill Clinton used to sign the repeal — hangs, framed, near the magazine covers.

[...]

Only twice before over the last century has 5 percent of the national income gone to families in the upper one-one-hundredth of a percent of the income distribution — currently, the almost 15,000 families with incomes of $9.5 million or more a year, according to an analysis of tax returns by the economists Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley and Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics.

[...]

Other very wealthy men in the new Gilded Age talk of themselves as having a flair for business not unlike Derek Jeter’s “unique talent” for baseball, as Leo J. Hindery Jr. put it. “I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career,” Mr. Hindery said, “who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear.”

UPDATE: Okay, let me be even more explicit. Sanford ("Sandy") Weill, who is prominently featured in the article (including photo and interview clips)... the Sandy Weill of the "Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall," who is the Chairman of Carnegie Hall's Board of Trustees and was "honored at a huge fund-raising party that Carnegie Hall gave on his 70th birthday"... the Sandy Weill who proclaims "We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built, and we shouldn’t rely on somebody else to provide all the services our society needs"... that same Sandy Weill led Citigroup into a notoriously scandal-ridden period from which they have yet to fully emerge. He was up to his neck in the Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing shenanigans (as tig points out in comments, they had to pay a $120 million SEC settlement for helping Enron commit fraud), and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, this part of the story goes completely unmentioned in the Times piece.

"[Mr Weill] was very hands on and a very controlling manager who oversaw a lot of operations," she says. "He did have an aggressive style, he emphasised profits, he was very strict about divisions delivering profit goals. I think questions of ethics really took a back seat."

15 February 2007

Someone outed Hotel Pianist? Gee, could you possibly get any more petty and vindictive? HP's blog was one of the most addictively entertaining things on the internet -- when I first discovered it, I couldn't resist delving into the archives -- "just... one... more... post... " Glad I caught it before she was forced to close up shop.

Here in China, determining who is in the body business and where the bodies come from is not easy. Museums that hold body exhibitions in China say they have suddenly “forgotten” who supplied their bodies, police officials have regularly changed their stories about what they have done with bodies, and even universities have confirmed and then denied the existence of body preservation operations on their campuses.

Human rights activists have attacked the exhibitions, calling them freak shows that may be using the bodies of mentally ill people and executed prisoners. In June, the police in the city of Dandong, about 190 miles northeast of here, discovered about 10 corpses in a farmer’s yard. The bodies were being used by a firm financed by foreigners, the government said, that was illegally involved in the body preservation business.

Worried about a growing trade in illegal bodies, the Chinese government issued new regulations in July that outlawed the purchase or sale of human bodies and restricted the import and export of human specimens, unless used for research. But it is unclear how the regulations will affect the factories.

Premier Exhibitions, one of the world’s largest exhibition companies and the creator of “Bodies: The Exhibition’’ — now showing at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan — declined to comment, saying it had not yet reviewed the regulations.